We Don’t Need Another Round of Susan Rice

O utgoing National Security Adviser Susan Rice, in a December 2016 interview with Buzzfeed, boasted about flipping off a superior in a meeting, defended the Obama administration’s inaction as hundreds of thousands of innocents were slaughtered in Syria, and, when asked if she would ever consider running for office, teased her fawning questioners: “Stay tuned.” For those who have, Rice’s ambitions are manifest. After all, she emerged from Joe Biden’s veepstakes a runner-up and, now that he has won, is widely considered the favorite for the position of secretary of state.

“Personnel is policy” may be a cliché, but it’s an accurate one. The executive branch is run by the president, who has ultimate say over every department and agency under its umbrella. But the federal government’s massive scope renders the bureaucrats and political appointees underneath him powerful not only as a result of the official duties associated with their offices, but because of their proximity to the chief executive and ability to influence his thinking.

It’s no surprise, then, that speculation over what Joe Biden’s cabinet will look like has been, and will continue to be, one of the most salient topics of political discussion until Inauguration Day. For conservatives, whispers about Elizabeth Warren being named treasury secretary and Bernie Sanders expressing his interest in running the Labor Department are enough to spur them to spend their money on and perhaps even their time in Georgia to ensure that Senate Republicans retain veto power over Biden’s selections. As scary as it is to imagine either Warren or Sanders in the presidential line of succession, though, it seems improbable either will be elevated from their Senate seats. Both would be unlikely to garner any GOP support should they be nominated and Biden, who remembers how Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts after Ted Kennedy’s passing, would be averse to nominating sitting senators from states with Republican governors to cabinet posts.

The danger of Susan Rice is that she would bring with her none of the practical political problems or associations with radicalism but a voice that would be just as injurious.

Rice has a close relationship with the president-elect and a lengthy resume full of foreign policy experience. In addition to her two high-profile positions in the Obama administration, Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Bill Clinton. Resumes can be deceiving, though, and while Rice’s history suggests she would possess a working knowledge of how the United States should operate on the international stage, she has little credibility with the American people or their chief ally in the Middle East.

After terrorists murdered four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi in 2012, Rice infamously went on a television tour of the major networks and cable news channels to insist that the attack was a spontaneous reaction to a 14-minute anti-Islamic video uploaded to YouTube by a little-known filmmaker. It was later revealed that the horrific events of that day were the result of a premeditated effort to murder Americans, and not, as Rice implausibly claimed, the consequence of a mostly anonymous short with no connection to the United States government. Rice’s complicity in the Obama administration’s efforts to downplay what happened in Benghazi is undoubtedly the most public stain on her record, but it’s far from her only shortcoming.

Given the chance, she would also do her very best to undo some of the Trump administration’s greatest achievements, which have come in the Middle East. Capitalizing on John Kerry’s cozying up to the dangerous and inhumane Iranian regime during his tenure as secretary of state, Trump and his foreign policy team have forged alliances between Israel and various Arab states, remaking the region and creating a united front against one of their chief geopolitical enemies.

For all of Biden’s talk about restoring our relationships with friendly governments across the globe, putting Rice in such a position of power would signal a shift away from Israel and toward Iran. Dennis Ross, who served as a Middle East adviser to President Obama, has pinned much of the blame for the atrophying of the U.S.-Israeli friendship under Obama on Rice. Ross’s account criticized Rice for failing to communicate openly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, particularly about the U.S.’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with the Iranians — which is perhaps a reflection of her view of Israel as a second-tier ally — and for harboring a personal dislike of the prime minister. He wrote that she thought Netanyahu “did everything but ‘use the N-word in describing the president’” after his speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015.

There is no shortage of examples of Rice’s poor judgment. Jim Geraghty and Fred Fleitz have catalogued those examples, but a few that stand out are her reluctance to acknowledge the genocide in Rwanda out of concern for the Democratic Party’s political prospects; her identification of John McCain’s belligerence, not Vladimir Putin’s ambition, as the primary object of concern after Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia; and her tendency to ignore the chain of command in pursuit of her own objectives.

Biden is going to take office on January 20, and it is in the interest of the nation for competent nominees to be speedily confirmed to his cabinet. In order to make that happen at the State Department, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should make it known to Biden that Republicans will not confirm Susan Rice. McConnell should signal to the president-elect that a more moderate choice such as Delaware’s Chris Coons would assuredly be confirmed with the help of conciliatory members of the Republican caucus. Were Rice to be put forward as the nominee, it’s unclear whether Republicans or Democrats would benefit from the ensuing fight. But it is obvious that the country would suffer as a consequence either of her confirmation or a sustained void at the top of America’s diplomatic corps.